Couture controls Vera in victory

There just wasn’t much Vera could do about it.

The 46-year-old Couture pushed Vera against the cage for much of the fight and did enough to take a unanimous decision.

“I controlled the tempo of the fight,” Couture said in the cage afterward. “It probably wasn’t the most exciting fight to watch, but Brandon’s dangerous.”

In fact, when Vera was able to get the fight away from the fence, he was able to inflict damage.

Vera nearly ended the fight when he chased Couture to the mat with a hard kick to the body in the second round.

“That hurt,” Couture said. “He stuck me good with that body kick.”

Vera sat in disbelief just outside the cage after the scores were read, clearly unhappy with the decision.

“I thought I won. I left it all out there. I gave it to Randy as best I could,” he said. “I don’t know, man, I don’t know. I still don’t know what the hell. Thanks judges.”

Couture held Vera against the cage for nearly the entire first round, with neither fighter doing much damage. Vera took the second round with his brief flurries of power in the moments he was able to escape Couture’s clutches.

The fight essentially was determined in the third round. Couture landed some shots in the clinch against the cage and a few in the standup. Vera again landed a few good kicks and achieved the only true takedown of the fight, winding up in the mount.

It wasn’t enough to impress the judges.

“You never really know what they’re looking for,” Couture said.

Dan Hardy’s bout was a bit more clear-cut.

The Brit adeptly passed the biggest test of his career with a unanimous-decision victory over Mike Swick and will likely be the first English fighter to challenge for a UFC belt, as he earned himself the next shot at welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre.

Hardy has yet to fight outside of Europe but has quickly moved up the division with his exciting style.

He rocked Swick in each of the three rounds but wasn’t able to finish.

“I’m excited, people. I know you are, too,” Hardy told the partisan crowd of his thoughts on a potential title fight.

After getting in some trouble in the first round, Michael Bisping rebounded from his knockout loss to Dan Henderson with a second-round knockout of veteran Denis Kang.

Matt Brown and Ross Pearson each won by knockout.